BEIJING (AP) - SuGui Kriss always wanted to
return to China to rediscover her roots and, perhaps, to leave her mark on
the country.

She’s done both.

She marched into the National Stadium - the
Bird’s Nest - last weekend for the opening ceremony of Beijing’s
Paralympic Games, representing the United States as a member of its
women’s sitting volleyball team.

How different this was from her early life in
southern China; an abandoned infant who was raised in an orphanage in
Kunming until she was adopted 13 years ago by the American couple Charles
and Marilyn Kriss.

"SuGui goes from a forsaken situation to
marching into the Bird’s Nest in front of 90,000 fans," explained Charles,
her adopted father. "It’s a great testimony."

If Paralympic organizers are looking for a
poster girl among the 4,000 athletes in these games, the 21-year-old SuGui
Kriss would be a great choice. She’s attractive, she’s overcome her share
of problems - and she has a powerful serve.

If you believe her coach, her parents and SuGui
herself, the Paralympics have taken a slightly shy girl and given her
confidence, a more outgoing personality and a chance to return home to
Albany, New York, with a Paralympic medal.

The U.S. women finished 2-1 in pool play and
will face the Netherlands on Friday in the semifinals. The Americans won
the bronze medal four years ago in Athens, and a victory against the Dutch
would put them into the gold-medal game - probably against China.

The Americans’ only loss here was to China, the
defending Paralympic champions.

In Wednesday’s 25-12, 25-17, 25-11 win over
Latvia, SuGui picked up four points serving, her first of the tournament.

"I was excited to play, I was ready to play. I
was all pumped up," said SuGui, a substitute backline player. "When you
know you are going to play, you can’t wait to do it."

Added Denise Van De Walle, assistant coach of
the U.S. team: "I feel like she’s come out of her shell. Early on we
weren’t sure if she was going to cut it because she was new to the game
and a little bit shy."

Kriss is one of thousands of Chinese orphans -
mostly girls - adopted by foreign parents during the 1990s. The Chinese
government has tightened the rules recently, making foreign adoptions more
difficult and more time consuming.

Named Yang SuGui on her Chinese papers, she came
into the life on the Kriss family in 1994 when their friends went to an
orphanage in Kunming to complete an adoption. They returned home with
photos of SuGui, which they passed on to Charles and Marilyn Kriss.

"They came back and called us, and it went from
there," Marilyn Kriss explained. "We really felt like she is supposed to
be in our family."

Marilyn Kriss made the trip to Kunming in August
1995 to pick up their new child - one of six, three adopted and three
biological children, for the couple.

"She was a little girl who was very shy, very
scared," Marilyn Kriss recalled of their first meeting. "She was very
frightened. She came into the room and she was afraid to look at me."

Charles Kriss recalls a slightly different
child, bounding off an airplane 10 feet ahead of her new mother as they
arrived in the United States.

"She (SuGui) was coming to America to start a
new life, and she was going to do it," her father recalled. "She has a lot
of inner strength, a lot of determination."

SuGui was born with shortened fingers on both
hands, and a right foot that’s not fully formed - probably due to a
condition known as Amniotic Band Syndrome. She said her recollections of
the orphanage are faint.

To clear that up, she returned alone there two
years ago and worked for seven weeks caring for infants and older
children, many of whom were disabled. She found a cleaner facility, but
fewer children. She also contacted a Chinese family who had helped care
for her when she was in the orphanage.

"For me, my memory was that it wasn’t a very
pleasant place," she said of her early childhood there. "Kids stayed
inside and didn’t go out a lot. That’s what I remember."

She said she has little interest in finding her
biological family - at least for now, knowing it would be a long shot. She
spoke Chinese as a child, but she’s lost most of the language since then,
limiting herself to "ni hao" (hello) like most foreigners.

"I can see how fortunate I was to have been
adopted and what a better life I have right now," she said. "If I was
actually still in China, I don’t think I would have survived at all."